Into the Country

After a couple nights in the city, and a tour through Phillip Island, it was my time to head someplace a little more rural. I took the train out of Melbourne City to a town called Geelong, then took the bus into Queenscliff where I was staying for three nights. After the two hour travel to Queenscliff, I was checked into Queenscliff Inn in the dorm room. It was a very antique little building, with an ancient kitchen, and very old rooms. As the weather was not very good, about 16-17 degrees and cloudy with rain periods, there was very little to do. I walked around the little country town (which didn't take long as the main part of town is a whole three blocks long) and realized I really had not done my homework well enough on finding just what the town was like and what there was to do. After an early evening of making a salad and reading my book, I was off to bed early without internet or much else to occupy me.
I woke up that firday morning to another dreary looking day and headed to the only cafe in town with WiFi. After a couple hours on the computer, and a few coffees later, I was ready to get the day going. Luckily I had made contact with a family friend from Canada who was living and working in Sorrento- another small country town, bigger than Queenscliff, but only a short ferry ride across the bay. Tristan and I had never formally met, but he had met my dad and aunts and uncles and cousins, and his mom is best friends with my aunt which is where the connection came about. I was even more in luck that the weather wasn't super great so he had the day off work. I took the scenic ferry route across the Bay, which took about forty minutes,and met up with TRistan in Sorrento. It was nice to see someone who knew people that I did, and came from a familiar place. We walked through Sorrento's main strip of shops and chatted lots, just getting to know one another. After we went through Sorrento, we walked to nearby bus stop and took the bus to the next town/ pier over called Rye. Tristan works out of Rye Pier doing parasailing, so knew the little town well. We stopped off at Subways for lunch, and grabbed gelato and wandered through a couple stores. Taking the bus back to Sorrento, we got off at the Caravan Park that Tristan is now living in. The weather was taking a turn for the better after noon, so we took advantage of the snorkeling gear him and his buddies own and headed to the beach just outside the Caravan Park. I was very surprised at the snorkeling just a few meters off the shore of a little beach. We jumped into the chilly water and waded out until the seaweed and corals overtook the sand and we had to swim. As we kicked around off shore we saw a puffer fish right away. The puffer fish was little with big eyes and folded down spikes, and a funny little tail that motors them in th strangest way. After a good start of seeing the puffer fish, shortly after we saw a couple rays sitting on the ocean bottom. I am unsure as to what type of rays they would be, but they were very calm as their round black body andthick "stinger" tail sat rested on the sand. We swam by plenty of brown-ish yellow coloured fish, and were lucky enough to come across a Dogfish Shark lying on the bottom of the sand as well. We were lucky not to come across any jellyfish, and headed back to the beach to towel off.
After a fun-filled day of snoreling and exploring, I took the last ferry back to Queenscliff to make another salad and have another chill night reading then off to bed early. The next morning I woke up early once more to get ready and to take the first bus at 7 20am into Geelong where I would then transfer to Torquay [tore-key]. I was praying for some good weather, but still didn't get it. It was no longer so cold, which was nice, but the cloud cover was still going with a bit of wind. I was successful to navigate myself into Torquay, and stopped off at the main shopping district. Torquay is famous for Bells Beach, and being home to big surf Brands like Ripcurl and Quiksilver. The famous Ripcurl surf carnival takes place at Bells Beach every year, and it is a district known mainly for its surf, and gorgeous beaches.
I wandered through the huge brand stores, then to a little cafe where I stopped for Brunch, and avoided a bit of morning rain for an hour or so. Once the rain had subsided, I ventured down towards the main town center, and headed further towards the water and beaches. The beach was easy enough to get too, and though I would have loved to sun bake all afternoon, the weather was not permitting it, so I wandered on down the boulevard, and through the parks to hit more beach. As I walked I came across a swim carnival that was on going, I wasn't quite sure of the event, but it seemed to be another local public swim race that every town seems to host around the summer holidays and to raise money for the local surf clubs. I watched a number of people scramble through the water before I continued down onto the beach just beyond the competition. As I walked over rocks and sand I took note of the huge coral structures at the end of the bay and headed for those. I cam across some really beautiful coral type rock structures in and around the water, I took a few photos, then made my way back to the main roads. I felt I had had a full day of walking by then and headed back up to the bus stop and waited for my transport back to Geelong and connection to take me once more to Queenscliff.
I had successfully killed three nights and three days in Queenscliff and woke up sunday morning to head back into the city.